Half the range of the piano keyboard! At last a serious critical examination of the utterly unique vocalist celebrated for her "four-octave voice," Yma Sumac! A confounding, sometimes heartbreaking, mixture of absurd show-biz hype, stunning virtuosity, and sometimes ravishing artistry, Yma Sumac was a firmly established recording artist of the folk music of her native Peru when she came to America to be "discovered." And discovered she was-by the publicity department of Capitol Records and the "Exotica" pop music maestro Les Baxter. From there her story becomes ever more tangled and weird-and deeply interesting. Yma herself is an amazingly contradictory mix. Nicholas Limansky (a formally trained professional singer) is able to demonstrate that she was startlingly sophisticated technically even though almost entirely self-taught. What is perhaps even more astonishing than the celebrated 4-octave range of her voice-and its effortless clarity and sweetness-was the nearly incredible longevity-fully 4 decades!-of her ability to command it. With the enthusiastic collaboration of her quixotic, charming, slightly rascally husband, she went along with the corruption of her artistic identity by the gleefully amoral record-company publicists, creators of her public persona-Inca Princess (sometimes Priestess!)-from a primitive mountain tribe (or, sometimes, descended from a line of kings that was said to go back several hundred years before there were any Incas)! Imperious as any diva with her intimates and musical collaborators, she maintained an unassailable dignity and unaffected graciousness as a performer and in relation to her fans. All documented in this large, lavishly illustrated volume-an extensively researched biography (her birth date established once and for all!), many personal anecdotes of her intimates, technical discussions of her voice and her music, generous excerpts from reviews and priceless examples of publicity material. About the author: Nicholas E. Limansky studied voice at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and has a performance degree from the University of West Virginia. He has sung with The Bach Aria Group, Musica Sacra, New York Choral Artists (of the New York Philharmonic), and the Opera Orchestra of New York. He reviews new vocal releases of historical singers for Opera News, The Record Collector, Classical Singer and Opera Quarterly. His vocal specialty is the acuto-sfogato (extended-vocal-range) soprano. His work on Yma Sumac has covered nearly three decades.

Yma Sumac: The Art Behind the Legend

Limansky, Nicholas E.

Limansky, Nidholas E.

Humor & Entertainment

YBK Publishers

Historical recordings by opera singers have proven since 1900 to offer much reward to the singer, student, listener, and collector alike. In the first book of this kind to appear in decades, Nicholas Limansky explains why critical listening is important and describes the merits of analyzing and comparing the recordings of previous generations of singers with those of the present. He also recounts how markedly record collecting has changed through the decades-especially in large cities like New York-mainly due to technological advance. He not only treats collecting 78 rpm disks, but LPs and CDs as well. Expired copyright now enables many of these early recordings to easily be acquired and collected, enabling the broad-scale comparison of style, technique, and vocal quality among the famous performers of earlier eras. The author points out what to look for among these differences in style, technique, and ability-both good and bad. (On occasion, the most famous are not the best!) With emphasis on today's student and collector, Limansky provides information about where, how, and on what labels given recordings can be found. He discusses printed resources that offer the interested even more information. Beginners and veterans alike will find much of interest in this far-ranging book. Nicholas Limansky studied voice at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and has a performance degree from the University of West Virginia. He has sung with major professional choral groups in New York City that include The Bach Aria Group, Musica Sacra, New York Choral Artists (NY Philharmonic), Opera Orchestra of New York, The Netherlands Ballet, and Alvin Ailey (Revelations, Rainbow). He has written performance reviews for the Italian publication, Rassegna Melodrammatic, and reviewed new vocal releases of historical singers for Opera News, The Record Collector, Classical Singer, and Opera Quarterly. He lectures at the New York Vocal Record Collectors Society and is a member of its board of directors.

Early 20th Century Opera Singers: Their Voices and Recordings from 1900-1949

Biographies & Memoirs

YBK Publishers, Inc.

Practiced internationally between 1960 and 2000, opera piracy (the illegal practice of recording live operatic performances in the opera house) was rampant. How fortunate! Through this we are provided documentation of famous voices as they sounded in real life, not as they were altered in the sound chambers of recording companies. This book guides opera lovers as to what to listen for in a given singer's voice and performances. The author discusses the performer's individual singing characteristics (and, sometimes, their shortcomings) in specific roles and, sometimes, specific performances of those roles. Bootlegged recordings can even provide a comparison between a star's performance of a given role on Tuesday to one sung that Thursday while comparing both of those to commercial recordings of that role. Concentrating on divas, there are lengthy individual technical discussions of the singing abilities and recording histories of Magda Olivera, Leyla Gencer, Leonie Rysanek, Faith Esham, Beverly Hoch, Ashley Putnam, Gianna Rolandi, Diana Soviero, Olivia Stapp, Ruth Welting, Sheryl Woods, and many others. Limansky's own expericence is woven into a history of pirating. Who were the pirates? How did they get away with it? (They didn't always.) How and where did they do their recording? The author, a pirate himself, tells us. He examines the moral dilemma of being a pirate while also performing as a professional musician. What did the stars think of pirating? Many promoted the practice. Why? Publicity was part of it. Limansky clarifies the rest of it. As a bonus, the book concludes with a rare, previously unpublished interview that the author conducted with the great American soprano, Roberta Peters in 1985. It includes an analysis of her recorded legacy; both commercial and pirated. The author: Nicholas Limansky studied voice at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and has a performance degree from the University of West Virginia. He has sung with professional choral groups in New York City that include The Bach Aria Group, Musica Sacra, New York Choral Artists (NewYork Philharmonic), Opera Orchestra of New York, The Netherlands Ballet, and Alvin Ailey (Revelations and Rainbow Round My Shoulder). He has written performance reviews for the Italian publication, Rassegna Melodrammatica and reviewed new vocal releases of historical singers for Opera News, The Record Collector, Classical Singer, and Opera Quarterly. He lectures at the New York Vocal Record Collectors Society and has for more than ten years been a member of its board of directors. Limansky has written a career overview and critical analysis of the 1950s Peruvian singer, Yma Sumac, Yma Sumac: The Art Behind the Legend, published by YBK Publishers. It is now considered to be the definitive work on this elusive artist. Limansky also wrote Early 20th Century Opera Singers: Their Voices and Recordings from 1900-1949 published by YBK Publishers. This work, Pirates of the High Cs: Opera Bootlegging in the 20th Century is the third of Limansky's YBK books.

Pirates of the High Cs: Opera Bootlegging in the 20th Century

Arts & Photography

Music

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